Sorry, Guv, I Made A Mistake

31 January 2013

Well, well, well …. Kerrie Allman has been at it again. Who would have thought it?

In September 2012, Igloo Books published A Guide To Knitting - Basic Techniques plus 40 projects. Inside the book, there is the statement that “All projects, content and images supplied by Handmade Living Magazine”,

Handmade Living Magazine was part of the All Craft Media “stable” of magazines, until ACM went into Administration in May 2012. Handmade Living of course rarely published knitting patterns, which went to its sister magazine, Knit (previously Yarn Forward).

The publishing of this collection of patterns raised loads of questions, so the 500+ members of the Ravelry group dedicated to ensuring that Kerrie/Tallulah will never again get away with her, shall we call them, “dubious business practices” set to work and within a few hours had identified the designers of all but about 4 of these patterns.

THIRTEEN patterns had come from ONE designer. She had no idea they’d been published and certainly received no money for this. She hadn’t been paid for some of them previously published by ACM. Some had never been published before and were to be transferred to Tailor Made Publishers, who bought the rights to Knit Magazine (now Yarnwise). The knitted samples were also supposed to be sent to Tailor Made but they didn’t all turn up. ACM had five lace shawls designed by this designer which Kerrie promised to post back to her. They never arrived. Another “lost in the post” story to add to a very long list of postal mishaps over the past 7 years or so. At least one of these shawls appeared in this book.

The designer is now in the position of not being able to sell these patterns as “previously unpublished” as without her knowledge, consent or any payment they’ve found themselves in the public arena.

Some of the patterns came from the KAL Media era, ie before All Craft Media. Rights to these patterns were NOT sold to All Craft Media when ACM bought the titles.

There is also A Guide to Sewing from the same source, and I know that at least one pattern in it was acquired in the same fashion, ie without the knowledge of the designer and without payment. I’ll leave it to the sewing community on the internet to investigate that one further.

Igloo Books has withdrawn these two books from sale while they investigate this. They even joined Ravelry so they could come into the forum and apologise to the designers concerned. This company has won many awards, including the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, so I think we can presume that they don’t want to tarnish their reputation over a couple of craft books. They would appear to hold a contract stating that title to these designs belonged to the person/business selling them. I look forward to seeing what action they take.

And Kerrie/Tallulah, you can bleat all over the internet as much as you like about how mean and unfair we are to criticise you for what you are keen to present as the normal human failing of making the occasional mistake.

Not posting samples, club packages, magazines and cheques when you’ve quite clearly stated that they’re in the post isn’t a mistake – it’s a lie. Very many lies going back a number of years.

And selling something that you don’t own is most certainly not a mistake – it’s criminal. Perhaps you could mention that to the police the next time you pop in to see them?